Night Brings the Hag!

For centuries, folklore, or what has become known as "the unexplained," has grown as a vast jigsaw, an immense puzzle made up of many differing, equally complex parts, whether in the form of monsters, ghosts, UFOs, crop circles, voodoo, spontaneous human combustion, telepathy, healing powers, or what have you. However, one of the most frightening enigmas to lurk deep within the network of weirdness pertains to the legend of the "Old Hag," often connected to bouts of sleep paralysis where sleeping victims, usually lying on their backs, are frozen and unable to move, and then succumb to what was once known as "witch riding" where an unknown presence enters the room and straddles the chest of the victim, pushing down upon the rib-cage.

In these horrifying "night terrors" or nightmares, the victim is only able to break the spell by forcing movement, which in turn extinguishes the presence. In many cases, such incidents have involved scary encounters with figures resembling old crones, and vampires of the astral plane.

At Woodcrest Hall, situated within Cabrini College in Delaware County, there is a rumor that such a presence appears to many girls who reside there. Witnesses usually describe being pushed down upon and unable to speak as a crushing weight is placed upon them. The college itself is a very haunted area and maybe the nightly intruder is a wandering spirit, although it appears to be closer related to the incubus and succubus, which are male and female demons. Such bizarre entities most certainly spawned the legend of today's modern vampire and films such as The Entity.

The "Hag of Pine Street" in Philadelphia was said to be an eerie specter of a woman who had died in a home on the south side of Pine Street, between Sixth and Seventh.

Passers-by often saw the forlorn apparition gazing from the window and weird screams and groans were often reported coming from the house. The house remained vacant for many years due to the terrifying hag legend, but one owner, a lady named Betsy Bassett, allegedly drove the malignant spirit from the place by enlisting a voodoo priest.

In 1982 the University Of Pennsylvania Press (Philadelphia) published the important work, The Terror that Comes in the Night by David J. Hufford. It remains the ultimate study of "hag attacks."

Despite scientific opinion that such attacks and terrors are caused by tiredness, stress, diet, and over-active imagination, there is still no explanation as to why victims nearly always describe the same life-sucking hag, and encounters with this entity continue to this day.

Image (The Nightmare by John Henry Fuseli) via Flickr user Thomas Roche

Sources:
The Terror Thast Comes in the Night (1982 UOPP) by David J. Hufford
Philadelphia Ghost Stories (1998 Exter House) by Charles J. Adams
Pennsylvania Haunts & History